Elderly tower block residents have been left “locked in their houses” because of a broken lift.
Occupants of The Spinney, in High Heaton, say they are fed up by repeated problems that have made it impossible for some people to get out of the building. 73-year-old Lilian Vaatainen told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the lift serving odd-numbered floors at the 15-storey high rise has broken down several times this year – sometimes being out of action for weeks.
She recently fell and injured herself descending the stairs to get to her fifth floor home, having been forced to take the lift to the floor above, and says that her husband and other people with worse mobility problems have no way of getting themselves to and from their flats. The latest problem with the lift in the Your Homes Newcastle-managed block saw it break down earlier this month and then again shortly after engineers came out to fix it last Saturday, November 19.
